Log Cabin Build on Off-Grid Homestead |EP23| BEARS

Log Cabin Building, Homesteading, Bushcraft, Survival Skills, Canadian Wilderness, Off Grid Living, ASMR

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I left the big city of Toronto to move onto 40-acres of Canadian wilderness with a magical river. I am building an off-grid homestead with multiple log cabins and structures from the timber on the land.

To all my subscribers, STRENGTH AND HONOUR! 🫡🤝⚡️🐺🌲

JAMES ALOFS

oh my f oh [ __ ] e who oh yeah ooh just go with the current this is nice this is much cheesier than swimming in this River in February I can tell you that oh yeah I am James alofs I left the big city to build an offgrid Homestead on 40 acres of Canadian wilderness this area of Ontario has giant ridg lines deep valleys and pure Rivers black bears Grey Wolves mountain lions moose and many Forest Spirits share the land I started in November 2023 starting with a modest 12 x6t guest cabin my goal is to build such a glorious Homestead that I attract a magnificent wife have 10 babies and raise an Irish Wolfhound welcome to Wild Homestead oh my oh [ __ ] got the bear spray holy [ __ ] oh my God I don’t think she’s coming mother bear and her cub that’s like worst case scenario man oh my God you know black bears generally are not as aggressive as grizzly bears but um there’s actually more people killed by black bears every every year in North America than grizzly bears so this year I think has been a bad year for Grizzlies there’s been three fatalities that I know of but generally there’s a there’s almost two people killed per year in North America between the United States and Canada by black bears so it it definitely does happen and the thing is is that when black bears attack humans you know they say if it’s brown lay down if it’s black fight back um because when black bears do attack humans if it’s a mother defending her cub it’s a different situation but when it’s a lone adult female or lone adult male black bear they will if they are attacking you and they don’t have any Cubs it’s cuz they want to eat you which is very interesting so that’s why you have to fight for your life with a black bear with grizzly bears the reason they tell you to play dead is that for whatever reason grizzly bears do not view humans as food they’re just defending territory so if you play dead with a grizzly bear chances are it’s going to leave you alone my heart is racing man that was a religious experience I felt like I just came across this s sacred Forest Spirit look at that oh my God that’s nice [Applause] Hello everybody welcome back to Wild Homestead it’s been two weeks um of illness so thanks for being patient everybody uh I went South I was having intestinal issues and I could just get better better Medical Care um down south so I went back to Toronto and uh it turns out when I ended up having was something called diver diverta kulitis uh basically it’s an inflammation lar intestine so I had um ultrasound actually wasn’t constipation but it kind of had a bit of that sensation to it so anyways um the doctor I also saw a naturopath they both recommended kind of going on an anti-inflammatory and low fiber diet so I did that and within kind of just over a week um it started to get better so that problem was solved but being in and out of all these doctor’s offices two full weeks a week and a half dealing with intestinal issues and then a half a week dealing with some some kind of Summer cold sore throat achy fever I was out for basically 4 days straight so it wasn’t very restful but it was needed to recover from my illnesses so oh my good Lord look at Thor’s Red Oak he’s like doubled in size look at that unbelievable wow cuz he remember ladies and gentlemen he was a good 6 in or so below the top of this thing and boom I just did the mother of all Supply runs I got a whole bunch of gear I think step number one is I got my new tent from white duck the people at white duck I told the story of what happened you know I think user error with my tent burning down last week and they sent me a new tent free of charge right away so um thank you so much to white duck they do make amazing canvas tents I I have been sleeping inside the cabin and that’s been okay but you know what there’s a ton of interior work left to do sleeping in there all my gear in there I’m going to be have to moving it constantly in and out it’s just not a good solution so I’m going to go back in the tent until the uh the cabin’s finished hello buddy hello it’s an American toad okay I think the flattest second flattest spot also today I need to clear up this clean up this entire uh burn site from the tent I think the next flattest spot is probably right here uh right beside [Music] [Music] [Music] H so this is a totally awesome um ATV trailer that has a tilt function on it my stepbrother um was selling his Cottage so two weeks ago I went over to his place and he gave me the trailer which I disassembled and put in the back of my my hatchback car and he gave me a steel weed whacker he gave me some gas cans what else did he gave me a prop an empty propane tank so just great gear unfortunately the female piece on this trailer is not going to work with the the um the hitch ball I have on the uh the ATV so I’m going to have to order a part for that I guess I can use my sled though in the [Music] meantime for it’s pretty good doesn’t keep all of them out you know when you come in and out of you’re going to let a few it seems like especially there’s a few no seeum but the vast majority of bugs it keeps it out what I’m going to use this for is kind of like a it’s a bugout shelter that’s literally what it’s called it’s got a rain fly on it but but um you know when I’m cooking and eating this is going to be kind of like a mess haul you know somewhere you can sit and and drink your coffee you know during the summer months June from my experience camping here in climate zone 4 of Ontario uh June is the worst month for the bugs because they’ve just hatched and then they kind of die back so July the bugs are definitely still here they’re not as bad and usually by about mid August there’s a big drop off and the bugs really go down cuz you know kind of in mid August in this part of the continent you start to have your first few cool nights maybe down to you know low double digits High single digits that my this is pretty cool is 700 ft of something called okom and oom is an ancient technology it’s a hemp braided rope soaked in pinear and for eons probably thousands of years they used oakum to waterproof boats right so say you’re making it out of a hardwood like Oak you would literally Hammer the oakum in between the gaps and the boards to make it watertight and you’d probably have to do it you know redo it every year but also for time and memorium for chinking uh on cabins so that’s what dick preni um if you guys have ever heard of that guy an American dude who did and filmed himself building a log cabin up in uh the Wilderness of Alaska he used oakam in uh back in 1965 and his cabin is still standing and it’s still uh apparently in good condition so I can’t wait to get to that point the oakum I’m not going to [ __ ] until I’ve got the windows and the door on so just today I ordered the windows they’re going to be in next week and uh I’m going to install all four of them and then uh I’m going to do the door and then I’m going to put in the chinking after that um and then I think the final thing I will do is the floor uh after so that’s the plan Stan oh my Lord look how spacious it is in here this is insane and for whatever reason there’s like no bugs that got in as I was going in and out which is amazing amazing this thing’s huge man I can’t recommend these tents enough white duck check them out freaking awesome 9 ft tall in the center oh my God I had such a good sleep I needed that man I was not sleeping well down South for whatever reason but I even got a fishing reel um braid I got some brook trout lures so I’m going to be trying these guys out in the uh River I’m going to be fishing in the river for the first time the only thing I forgot to get was a fire extinguisher I need to go back in and get two small ones or one big one or two big ones I need before anything I need to go grab a fire extinguisher I just can’t be sitting here I just don’t feel uh safe without that fire extinguisher man starting your day with lemon water nothing more refreshing just feels like it cleanses the body the mind and the Soul so I literally got the biggest fire extinguisher oh that’s all France the biggest fire extinguisher they have heavy duty ideal for office Cottage rural properties Etc so that’s the biggest one they got I ended up getting a thermacell um I was in the town’s Outdoors Outdoor Store and the guy recommended this I got a second smaller fire extinguisher uh just as a backup moving base camp this reminds me of my two favorite Roman emperors uh valentinian and valin they were brothers co-emperors right near the end of Rome the fall of Rome and what’s interesting about them is they moov the capital from Rome um to two capitals in the western uh half of the Empire they made Trier which I believe is a city it’s either just inside the French border or just inside the the German border uh today they made Trier the Western capital and that’s where valentinian ruled and then valin ruled out of the East out of Constantinople what was interesting is that valentinian when he was building his new Palace in Trier he had a giant Bear Pit constructed in the middle middle of the throne room and apparently valentinian was relatively level-headed but if you pissed him off he would throw you into his Bear Pit he had two giant brown bears uh in The Bear Pit and uh you know commonly in North America we sometimes call brown bears a uh grizzly bear but uh it’s basically the same Beast that exists in Eurasia as well and at that time the biggest brown bears known to the Romans were in the Scottish Highlands and what’s so interesting is that the Scottish Highlands historically were heavily wooded the Scottish Highlands you see today you know in pictures and videos they’ve kind of been denuded of all of their major forests you know they’ve been cleared for agriculture for fuel for ship building Etc you know over the centuries but back in Roman times there was dense dark forests all over scotlands the Scottish Highlands I believe they were called the Caledonian Forest you had these two bears captured in the Scottish Highlands and imported to Trier um and so he’d be feeding people that he didn’t like to these bears in the bear pet what the funniest thing about all of this is the names he had he chose for the two bears one bear was called Golden crumb and the other one was called innocence like LOL what names for two man-eating bears but anyways I mean valentinian wasn’t a to totally evil guy what he decided after like whatever it was 15 or 20 years of loyal service you know eating people he didn’t like he actually had golden crumb and innocence sent back to the Scottish Highlands and released back into the wild to enjoy the both the Wonders and the tears of freedom in the wilderness so I thought that was kind of cool that’s one of my favorite just moving base camps like this today reminds me of this one of my favorite stories you know from the uh from the Roman Empire about moving base camps or moving capitals uh in this situation h there is a crazy amount of room in here there really is so I’m 6′ 3 192 cm and look how tall the tent is here so I actually found out what happened to my last tent look at this I’m going to throw up this image it’s a still from a shot literally seconds before my tent caught fire in the last episode two weeks ago you can see that for some reason I guess I might have must have been jostling around the stove or something the pipe Lent over leaned over and it was lying right up against the tent flap and that’s how it caught fire so I still have great faith in these tents I lived in it for 6 months through the entire winter some days the fire was going all day long right right through that stove Jack over there so I’m still a huge fan of these uh tense white duck tents so guys this is a uh 308 uh caliber rifle it’s a large caliber rifle this is by Savage Arms um and this is a gun that I got about a year ago basically from my research and what my Uncle Tim was telling me is that uh the first gun you get is a 12 gate shotgun which is what I had uh unfortunately it melted and exploded in my fire so I have to get another one of those because those those are great for home defense right that’s a great great weapon to uh defend your homestead with this guy is definitely more of a big game hunting rifle um but if you have a 12 gauge shotgun you can hunt all different kind of uh Upland game birds you can hunt wild turkey rabbits squirrels um but in terms of big game this is a great caliber and rifle this Rifle cost me about $500 Canadian dollars and it has a stainless steel barrel this is definitely an economically priced rifle um if I had to do it again I’d probably buy like a $1,000 one um this is like a full just plastic stock and everything but it’s been good so far um I don’t feel comfortable just having this weapon on the homestead and there’s a reason that I didn’t bring this gun up when I moved on to the homestead I brought my 12 gauge see this is a gun for kind of long range precision shooting if you’ve got a bear charging you um or you’ve got some Intruder who’s high on drugs um or you’ve got a Rabbid dog this is not really a great short range weapon to try to hit a moving Target with uh definitely need that 12 gauge I need a12 gauge that’s my Yeti mug these are my boots these are my schne boots at least one side of one the shotgun this is Sy synthetic stock is basically gone there’s a bolt that’s melted in there see the actions completely exploded cuz there were in the uh magazine there were three shells that I always kept in there just for safety right so I could I could load it quickly if I needed it ladies and gentlemen Thor is with us this thing is literally doubled in size I cannot believe this so I have to ever so delicately cut all the way around these m multiple branches and leaves operation free Thor’s Oak Mission success look look there’s like multiple different branches that’s kind of going off of I think this is the main Crown here but um what I’m going to do my limited gardening knowledge is I remember listening to this podcast called re yourself was with this guy named gnarly Pippen who is an expert in Wild apples and rearing apples and what he said he did with his apple trees to maximize their productivity he weeded out all the other competing plants at the base of his apple trees so I am going to try to take this moss and some of these other plants down here out okay my other question for tree people should I be trimming these other branches off at the bottom to try to encourage growth in the main stem or does it really matter with a red oak like this let me know if I’m if I should be doing any trimming for for fresh tell me m when I go home the boys won’t leave the girls alone they pull my hair they steal my conb but that’s all right till I go home she is handsome she is pretty she is the bell of Belfast City OAB Booga this is good coffee oh who oh woooo wow that was the first brook trout I’ll put up a picture of what a brook trout looks like that I’ve ever caught in my life so all the fish that have been following and biting my lure have been roughly around that size I think it’s maybe kind of between I’d say 7 and 12 in which kind of makes sense for the size of this River now there’s a waterfall which you guys have seen before that’s uh a few kilometers Downstream from here where I go swimming fish are unable this river flows into a bigger River much bigger River the fish bigger fish from the lake are unable to get over that waterfall So In this River here it’s going to be all Brook tread I think and you know at that size personally because I basically like 2 lbs of meat a day I need to have at least four of those guys I think to have a meal I don’t think I’m going to be heavily fishing out of this River there’s a big there’s a big lake up to the northwest um that I know talking to the locals has got lake trout it’s got smallmouth bass it’s got walleye and then there’s Downstream this river flows into a bigger River and now it’s got all different kinds of Critters so I think I’m going to do both most of my food fishing in those two locations but so cool there’s a lot of fish in here I don’t know if you noticed but I’ve been getting strikes pretty much every cast below the below this uh Beaver Dam here oh th the Thunder God th the Thunder God is with us excellent I shall redouble my efforts [Applause] look at my Leatherman it’s like fused together so guys we got uh thunderstorms on and off for the rest of the evening but we’re going to go start something a project the second phase of which I think is going to be very dangerous it involves fing two of the largest trees I believe the largest trees on this uh property and it has to do with the arrival of my pickup truck let’s go whoa so this guy’s fully Dead all the way to the top [Music] a [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] we’re looking at right now is the future parking spot for my pickup truck um and it’s kind of comes down here around the Bend from the road and you cannot see this at all this space here and is I’ve hired one of my neighbors we’re going to work together uh early next week on Monday and we’re going to bring in uh two truck fulls of sand and then two truck fulls of uh gravel first get a base of the sand uh from my current driveway that ends further up towards the road get it all the way back here around the bend and then uh two layers of gravel hopefully we’ll do it off but I think it looks pretty good so something that I learned from my neighbors is when you want to pick a parking spot it’s best to have it around a Big Bend into your property because that way if somebody’s driving by in the road they can’t see whether you’re home or not and what I’m also going to do is get an iron farm gate and always have it closed so that when someone’s driving by the gates always closed and then they don’t know whether the car is there or not right so it just adds an extra layer of uh security and difficulty to would be vandals now these two giants that guy and this guy this one’s completely dead I can’t let it fall in the car and this guy is kind of half dead it’s also very precarious so that guy’s leaning right towards the road going to have to take that guy out and this guy out unfortunately my gas chainsaw the blade sorry the um the chain is just spent I’ve sharpened it so many times I just sharpened it and it’s still dull as heck so I need to buy a new uh blade I think before I can tackle these monster boys here [Applause] [Music] [Applause] holy cow Bunga ladies and gentlemen that was the first 3 days back after being away from 2 weeks pretty action-packed 3 days a lot of time in town a lot of days restocking but I feel like the base camp is back in Action now didn’t have a chance last week cuz I was cleaning up uh S I was finishing off the roof but look we got it all nice and cleaned up we got the the remaining firewood on top of the gravel entrance we set up a bug shelter and mess hul as well as storage unit we got our new white duck tent shout out to white duck check them out wh duck uh.com the best canvas tents in my opinion and then we got our new stainless steel grill which I’m loving and uh we got the build site over here finally cleared up of all the debris we’ve organized our spare logs we’ve got our 2 by Lumber organized from smallest to biggest the remaining uh flashing for the roof we’ve got three different kinds of plywood and then we’ve got the scrap uh 2 byy and plywood over there so I think we’re looking pretty organized guys now so next week we’re getting the windows in so my objective next week is to do the windows and the doors so check it out next week guys and you know not every week is going to be crazy building I really needed to hit a reset on this week only three filming days you know usually I do five but uh I really just needed to to clean up everything and organize everything before moving forward so sorry there was no huge activity guys you know I think this will never be a this is not a pure building all the time Channel this is about the lifestyle right so I appreciate you guys and we’ll see you next week doing the windows and the doors on the cabin here on wild Homestead ugaa